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VP Pence bolsters Trump's cred with Catholics

Vice President Mike Pence appeared at the 13th National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC on Tuesday and spoke about President Trump’s commitment to people of faith. He reiterated the Trump administration’s goals of protecting the unborn and advancing freedom of religion, both of which are posited by the Catholic faith. “I had the honor to stand by President Trump as he signed an executive order to restore religious liberty in the public square,” Pence said to a standing ovation. “This president stands for religious liberty here in America, and around the world.”

Pence continued, “Remember to bow the head and bend the knee to pray in these challenging times. Not so much pray for a cause but as for our country.”

Persons attending the breakfast approved of Pence’s remarks. “I was very encouraged to hear the vice president, to express his faith overtly and to exhort us here to pray for our country,” former Ambassador to the Vatican R. James Nicholson told Breitbart News. “Nobody knows President Trump better than Vice President Pence, and when he affirms the president’s commitment to the sanctity of life, it’s very encouraging.”

“The vice president is sending the right message in the right moment. Unity is important, and it is promoted by faith. Embracing God, we will be one nation,” said Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville of Washington.

“I couldn’t be more proud to serve as vice president to a president that stands without apology for the sanctity of life,” Pence said. He also highlighted Trump’s signature of the Mexico City policy, which blocks federal funding for non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling or advocates for decriminalization.

Pence also spoke to the Trump administration’s policy toward terrorism, with a focus on Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East. He spoke about the bombings of Coptic Christians on Palm Sunday in Egypt in early April.

“This administration hears you, this administration stands with you,” Pence promised the crowd and added that protecting persecuted people of faith is a foreign policy priority. “We’ll take the fight to the terrorist on our terms on their soil,” he asserted. “He’s not just talked about it, he’s taken action to protect men and women of the faith,” he said.

The breakfast, established in 2004 in response to Saint John Paul II’s call for a “new Evangelization,” is an annual non-partisan gathering of Catholic religious, political and business leaders.

Trump received as much as 52 percent of Catholics and 60 percent of white Catholics in the 2016 election. Trump did even better among “weekly churchgoers,” with 56 percent of the vote, compared to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 40 percent.